


like that rolling stone song

by drivingnotwashing



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Birthday Party, Curtain Fic, Established Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Minor Character Death, Sam Winchester Has Mental Health Issues, Season/Series 09, Sibling Incest, Suicidal Thoughts, Voicemail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:01:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27587824
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/drivingnotwashing/pseuds/drivingnotwashing
Summary: “I want to die.”For a second, Dean thinks he’s misheard, he almost wants to do the comical thing and clean his ears with an invisible Q-tip, because it makes no sense, there’s no way Sam just told him this.“What?” He hears himself say, but it’s distant, like an echo.Sam bites his lip again, harder, if he goes deeper he’ll draw blood, but maybe that’s what he’s looking for. “I’ve been thinking about it, did some research actually.”“You’ve been thinking about it,” Dean repeats, dumbstruck.
Relationships: Dean Winchester/Sam Winchester
Comments: 22
Kudos: 192





	like that rolling stone song

**Author's Note:**

> a short bittersweet fic about sam's state of mind post gadreel in the context of a curtain fic (+ some voicemail angst because why was that never mentioned again?) trigger warning: there are talks of death, of people dying, of sam dying, of just a lot of death, supernatural style. hope you enjoy this!

Dean’s getting restless, he shouldn’t because he’s heard time and times again by housewives on daytime television that baking is an art form that takes patience but he’s staring at his cooling cake with a makeshift piping bag filled with chocolate buttercream in one hand, a bowl of freshly diced strawberry in the other and if he has to wait one more minute, he’s going to pipe that cream directly into his mouth and go into a well-deserved sugar coma. 

He hasn’t baked in years, never had the time or space in the last decade, but when he was a kid, around thirteen, he’d learned the basics in roadside cooking magazines and reruns of Martha Stewart’s best recipes. He’s sure it would surprise a few people to learn that the great demon slayer Winchester knows how to make a good-looking peach cobbler but he’s thirty-four and honestly a little bit too old to stick to these made-up rules of masculinity. Not that he’ll ever tell anyone that, but he doesn’t feel guilty when he cooks anymore and that’s good enough for him. 

It’s Sam’s birthday, the big thirty, and things have been tense between them for a while now, it’s Dean’s fault, he knows that and maybe baking a cake won’t fix everything, but it’s a start. He’s even gotten some rosé, the syrupy sweet type of sparkling wine Sam has always favored but never lets himself get because dive bars don’t carry wine and Dean would have never let him hear the end of it. Today is different, he’ll enable Sam’s girlish taste because hey, maybe it’s time to let that shit go, maybe Dean can stress bake and Sam can drink the frat girl version of champagne in peace. Today is a celebration, first of Sam’s thirty years on Earth, and that’s the most important part, but of their big win too, of their final victory, the last hurray.

Two weeks ago, the world almost ended again, which shouldn’t be surprising because it tends to do that every few months, but this time, it’d been a close one, closer than usual, raining grasshoppers style. There’d been a plague, blood, fire, flesh eating demons, all the symptoms of an apocalypse 2.0 and in the middle, Sam and Dean. They’d had fought their way to the gates of Hell, the same one Jake Talley had opened seven years ago and Sam, that motherfucking genius, had plucked evil out of the soil, had torn the ground open and then dragged Heaven down with his bare hands, only driven by the pull of Azazel’s blood in his veins and the last bit of Gadreel’s grace, a dangerous cocktail, holy and damned. It should have been scary, terrifying really, to stand next to his brother and watch his eyes turn to gold as sulfur black clouds formed over his head before surrendering to his whims, but it had been more beautiful than anything else and Dean had been more proud than scared, maybe he’d grown out of the inherent panic that Sam’s demon blood caused in him too. 

The world didn’t end, but it changed, the magic and the mythical had been erased of existence, demons had been banished to Hell, the angels had gotten locked in Heaven, those who had still some grace left in them at least, and the monsters, the ghosts, all of it had vanished. There was no more hunts, no more need to save people, the end of the family business as it once stood. 

When Sam had woken up after it, exhaustion still visible in his eyes, he’d been sick with himself, which Dean had expected, but it still had broken him a little, to see his brother shake and try to tear the skin off his own face. They hadn’t touched since then, since they’d gotten the bunker, he’d found his way to his brother’s bed more often than not, but Sam had flinched when Dean had tried to hug him and since then, they don’t touch, they don’t kiss, or hold hands, not that they did it that often to begin with, and they don’t really speak either, which is probably what Dean misses the most.

It posed an ethical question, the disappearance of everything supernatural, because there had been good people out there with a little magic in them, decent werewolves or vampires, like Garth, who had just been removed from the Earth and of course Sam had hated himself for it, he’d shouldered the blame alone, saw himself as a murderer and maybe he was, maybe if Dean hadn’t been so glad that Sam had survived it, so glad that he hadn’t been expunged from the world too, he could have understood it. But he was the same Dean, the same guy that hadn’t changed and it meant he couldn’t care about anything else, about anyone else. Sam was alive, Castiel was human, Jody and the girls were okay and the world was different, maybe worse in some ways, but safe and now Dean could think about the future.

His nearby one consists of his brother’s birthday dinner and that’s good enough, the rest will come with time, he’ll find a new purpose soon enough, even if that’s just fixing cars in Lebanon and making roasts on Sundays. It will all be okay as long as Sam starts smiling again, and with that thought enters the cake. The cake that Dean needs to let cool, he knows, so he just groans a little and puts his strawberries and buttercream back on the counter.

“I bought the candles you required, Dean,” Castiel can’t appear out of nowhere anymore but he’s still silent enough that it makes Dean flinch each time. “A cerulean three and zero.”

Dean is pretty sure he’d just said blue, but this is good too, “Thanks, Cas.” He picks the candles off his friend’s palm, giving him a small smile. It’s still a little strange, living with a former angel, but the bunker is vast and most of the time Cas spends his days watching Netflix and making extremely detailed analysis of cartoon characters’ morality. It’s fine, good even, and Dean might start to enjoy it when Sam stops sulking.

What was the limit date on blaming yourself for a magical genocide? Dean isn’t sure, but he’s gonna say that fifteen days is enough. Which is why he’s invited a few people over, just Jody, Alex and Claire, a close circle, something that won’t freak Sam the fuck out but will make him come out of his room. Dean feels like a suburban mother trying to get her gothic teenager to see the sunlight. 

“Hey, Claire!” He calls out, and she doesn’t even roll her eyes when she makes her way to him, truly a blessed day, “Can you taste this?” He thrusts a spoon in her hand and tries to not feel anxious when she doesn’t reply immediately. He is _not_ going to make a big deal if the angry fifteen-year-old doesn’t like his homemade gravy.

She double dips, the heathen, “It’s great.” 

He lets her go with the bowl and he turns towards the cake, once again, before quickly going to the oven. There’s a full pan of macaroni in there, Jody brought vegetables and chicken, it’s going to be great, Dean wills it into existence. And yet, he’s worried, not about the food, there’s enough booze in the bunker to cover the taste of burning with a little less wine and a little more rye if need be, but he’s worried about Sam, _shocker_.

There’s something wrong with him, actually there’s something wrong with how there’s _nothing_ wrong. It’s crazy, he seems fine, neutral, totally balanced except for the fact that he doesn’t smile or laugh and doesn’t make eye contact with Dean for more than three seconds. He doesn’t seem angry, doesn’t seem sad, he’s just this noncommittal, mousy man that Dean has never associated with his little brother. Sam is inherently uptight, sure, he’s a control freak and he cares too much about eating five fruits and veggies each day, but he’s a little insane too. He’s a freak, in a good way, the best way really because Dean loves that about him, he loves how Sam gets abnormally mad at people who throw things from their car windows, he loves how Sam can recite Latin in his sleep but doesn’t give two shits about classic rock, he loves that Sam one time fought a guy in a truckstop for their last sudoku book.

He loves that Sam cares, sometimes too much, about things that other people barely register. He loves that Sam acts like a logical, level-headed person but he’s also the dude who runs into a fight with nothing but barbed-wire and furious confidence. He loves how Sam can rage and scream, he used to find it annoying when they were kids and Sam would challenge their father on everything, but he misses it now, hell, he misses getting shouted out by his baby brother, he misses seeing something in Sam’s eyes that isn’t fatigue and compliance.

The alarm on his phone rings and Dean gets the pasta out of the oven, a towel wrapped around his hand because he refuses to buy fucking mitts, he takes another bottle of wine and goes to the dining room. They don’t use it often, read never, but it’s a nice room, very warm and cozy, the walls are painted orange, the tables and chairs are made of oak and there’s an open fire on the right side of the room, where a few armchairs and couches form the perfect place for a drink and an appetizer. Dean didn’t make appetizer because he’s not Julia Child but he opened a bag of peanuts and he gave Claire and Alex ice in their sodas, he thinks he can call himself a good host just for that.

Sam is sitting near the fire, he’s got a glass of rosé in hand and his cheeks are already a bit pink, it shouldn’t be adorable, Dean’s brother is the size of a small building and he’s turning thirty not five, but it is. Cas is on his right, also drinking some wine and Dean knows with startling clarity that he’s going to clean angel puke tonight.

“Wait, you killed your first ghoul at ten?” It’s Alex, she braided her hair in a crown for the occasion and she’s wearing a purple dress that makes her look so much like a kid that Dean can’t help feeling fond. “Isn’t that super dangerous?”

“It was,” Sam isn’t smiling but it’s as close as it’s gonna get, “But it was our Dad’s idea of protection, training your kids early so that they can kill anything by the time they turn sixteen.”

“That’s kinda cool,” Claire says, she’s drained her glass and now she’s chewing ice. 

Dean’s not sure he agrees with her, back a time he did, he truly believed his father was a hero and everything he did was amazing, but things change and maybe this is one of the good ones, “You could say that.” Sam looks back at him, only noticing him now apparently, there’s an edge in his eyes that Dean hasn’t seen in a while, it would be welcomed if it didn’t make him so antsy. 

Nobody else catches it, the dangerous glint in Sam’s eyes, and Alex continues, “So, you’ve been hunting for twenty years?”

“No, closer to sixteen, give or take.”

“What did you do for four years?”

“I went to college.”

Claire straightens at that, gulping down an ice cube and ignoring Jody’s complaints when she puts her boots on the coffee table, “Wait, really? You knew monsters were out there and you still went to college?”

Dean doesn’t like her tone, he doesn’t like how familiar it sounds to his own ears. “Hey-”

“Yeah,” Sam isn’t troubled, “I told my Dad I wanted to do something else than clean monster guts off the Bowie knife he gave me when I was twelve and he told me to pack my things and never come back.” Back a time, there would have been anger in Sam’s voice, now there’s nothing, no regrets or outrage, just _nothing_. Dean’s blood freezes in his veins because it’s true, and yet it sounds so wrong.

“And then?” Claire presses, ignoring Jody again, “What happened?”

“I don’t think this is an appropriate conversation for a birthday party,” Cas butts in.

“I’m sorry, Claire has been a little agitated since-”

“No, it’s fine.” Sam puts his empty glass on the table, takes two peanuts and swallows them dry, this is weird on so many levels Dean doesn’t know where to start. “What happened next?” 

“Yeah, you’re here now, so what happened next?”

“Claire, I don’t think-”

“If he doesn’t want to he doesn’t have to answer.”

“Sam, I’m so sorry, you don’t have-”

“My girlfriend died,” Sam says, conversational, and that’s what makes Dean finally drop the macaroni on the table, “The demon who killed my mother and put his blood in me decided that she was making me too soft so he burned her to the ceiling of my apartment and I started hunting again to avenge her, then you know, I started the apocalypse, got stuck in Hell with the devil and then deleted magic off the face of the Earth.” He eats another peanut, the silence around them is glacial. “It’s the redacted version, but it pretty much covers all the bases.”

Claire is so pale, she could be a spirit, if Dean wasn’t so mad, he’d try to comfort the kid. Instead, he gets to his brother, pulls him out of his armchair and leaves the room. Sam doesn’t fight him, he doesn’t even drag his feet, his skin is warm under Dean’s fingers, and he doesn’t fake innocence when Dean turns to him. They’re in the corridor of the library, far enough that the girls won’t hear what’s being said, but not far enough that they won’t notice it if they start fighting, which is why Dean doesn’t shake his brother until his head rattles loose. 

“What the fuck was that?” He asks, so angry he can feel sweat form on the back of his neck and a vein bulge on his forehead.

Sam shrugs, nonchalant in a way he has _never_ been before, even when he was fifteen and gave Dean the silent treatment out of spite when Dean was a little too ready to jump at all of John’s orders. “She wanted to know.”

“She’s a kid! An annoying one, sure, but she doesn’t know what she really wants and she certainly didn’t want that.”

“She wanted to know what happened,” Sam points out and Dean can hear some impatience in his brother’s voice, something that breaks this mask of indifference. “ _That’s_ what happened.” 

“I know it is, but don’t you think you could have, I don’t know, made it easier?”

“You mean _lie_?” And Sam’s angry now, actually angry, Dean finds it a little gratifying that he’s still the only one that can get an emotion like this out of his bleak brother. “Sorry, I’ll leave that to you if you don’t mind.”

Dean swallows, “So I guess we’re talking about Gadreel now.”

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

“What do you want me to say, Sam? That I’m sorry? Because I am, I told you that a thousand times.”

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“Sammy, don’t be like that, please.” He tries to grab his brother’s shoulder, tries to make this right somehow but Sam pushes him back. They both hit the opposite walls, staring at each other. They’re sharing the same air, so close Dean could wrap his arm around his brother’s waist and draw him in, but he won’t, he can’t. 

They stay like this for a while, looking at each other, breathing heavily, Dean doesn’t know what to say, where to start, usually, he’d try to crack a joke, but Sam doesn’t laugh anymore and he’s not sure he’s ready to see his brother fall in pieces.

“What do you want, Sam?” He asks, eventually. 

He’s so tired, he doesn’t want to fight, he just wants a tangible solution, he just wants to fix everything and go on with their lives because this is all they have now, no job, no plans, just each other.

Sam doesn’t answer for a moment, he’s still staring at Dean, almost calculating, and then something breaks, his shoulders slouch, his chin quivers and Dean finally sees his brother. He’s there, behind the too-long hair, the blue flannels and bright eyes, the man who cares, who cares so much he’d save the world with hope alone.

“You won’t give me what I want,” There’s no doubt in his voice, no place for arguments either. 

“Can’t if I don’t know what it is,” Dean takes a step, Sam doesn’t move, he takes another and links their fingers, “C’mon, Sammy, let me fix this.”

Sam takes a shaky breath, and he comes closer, opening his legs so Dean can lodge himself between them and look his brother in the eyes, a hand on his wrist, fingers pressed to his pulse point, the other cradling the back of Sam’s neck. Sam’s hair smells like expensive lavender shampoo and salty sweat, the clean type you get when you exercise and hydrate, giant health freak.

“I won’t get mad,” Dean says, he’s not sure it’s fear that’s keeping Sam silent or if it’s something else, but there’s not much in this world Sam could ask for and Dean wouldn’t give him on a silver platter. “I’ll even let you get one of these drooling dogs you like so much, if that’s what you want, Sammy, I’ll give you anything.”

Sam chuckles, wet and strained, he’s hiding behind his hair a little, Dean lets go of his wrist and pushes the strands back. “It’s not a dog.”

“A cat?”

“No, not a pet.”

“Do you want to get new furniture, a trip to IKEA?” Humor to break the tension, Dean’s not so secret move. 

“I don’t want _things_ , Dean.”

“You want someone?” It’s a weird thought, that Sam would want casual sex out of their relationship, and he’s maybe only half-joking when he says, “Because I’m not sure I ain’t gonna be jealous if you wanna bang a chick, Sam.”

“Jesus Christ, why does everything have to be about sex with you.”

“Why is it never about sex with _you_?”

“I guess I’m a more nuanced character than you are, I got more depth.”

“Bitch, shut up, I’m a fan favorite.”

Sam really laughs at this, a full belly laugh that makes Dean smile so wide it hurts a little. He can see Sam’s dimples, they’re probably the most beautiful thing on this face of the Earth.

“C’mon, baby,” He tries again, voice low and seductive, “What do you want?”

Sam blinks up at him, bites his lip and sighs, Dean knows he’s won just by the sound of it. He feels himself puff his chest a bit, victorious and proud, before he falls apart at Sam’s words.

“I want to die.”

For a second, Dean thinks he’s misheard, he almost wants to do the comical thing and clean his ears with an invisible Q-tip, because it makes no sense, there’s no way Sam just told him this.

“What?” He hears himself say, but it’s distant, like an echo. 

Sam bites his lip again, harder, if he goes deeper he’ll draw blood, but maybe that’s what he’s looking for. “I’ve been thinking about it, did some research actually.”

“You’ve been thinking about it,” Dean repeats, dumbstruck.

“Yeah, I mean, you remember when I asked you why you brought me back? With Gadreel?”

Dean shakes his head, he couldn’t remember his mother’s name right now, his head is filled with nothing but void. 

“I asked you what was the upside of me being alive and you said,” Sam has the decency of looking guilty, “You said that you brought me back to keep fighting, you know? Keep hunting with you and everything.”

Dean doesn’t know what to say but maybe Sam’s not looking for an answer.

“But now,” And Dean knows where this is going, he feels dread, the snivelling dark ropes of it, grab him by the throat and twist him up inside. “Now there’s nothing to hunt anymore and I thought, I thought maybe I could go.”

This is when rage should settle in, when Dean should punch a hole in the wall and crack his knuckles wide open and bloody on the stones. But his anger isn’t violent, it’s not overwhelming, it’s patient and stunned, present but subdued by the pain that Sam’s words have caused, and by the fact that Dean somehow understands them. 

“ _Go_ ,” He whispers, so close to Sam’s face he could be saying it directly into his mouth if he wanted to, “Going and dying aren’t the same thing, Sammy.”

Sam winces, it doesn’t feel like a win. “With everything gone, Dean, I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing.” He doesn’t sound sad, but yet again, all of this is not new for Sam, he’s been thinking about it for days now, weeks even, it’s only Dean who isn’t accustomed to it. “And now with Heaven and Hell closed, dying just means the end of it, you know? It would be just the end, eternal rest and all that.”

Dean guesses this is what Sam’s researched, where he’d go when he finally decides to kick the bucket. Because if there were a chance that he’d end up bellow or upstairs, he wouldn’t have considered it longer than this, Sam’s distaste for Heaven is almost as strong as his hatred for Hell. Which means this is calculated, a thought out desire, he’s been planning this, sketching an escape plan.

“You want to kill yourself,” Dean says, and here is the unstoppable anger, here is the red tint to his vision and the taste of iron in his mouth. “Days I spent worrying about you, thinking you were coming to terms with what we did to save the world, thinking that maybe you missed hunting or that you were just confused and needed time to think.” His hand on the back of Sam’s neck is turning into a vice, nails digging in the fuzzy and moles dotted flesh. “But no, what did you do, Sammy _,_ uh? You wrote me a _suicide note_.”

Sam’s angry too, good, Dean hopes his fists will break his skin, “It’s not like that.”

“What is it like, then?” He’s screaming, more animal than man, “You think it’s _fair_? You think it’s normal, or sane?”

“It’s just what I want!”

“Well, you can’t get what you want!” Dean is going to tear his throat out, he’s going to sink his teeth into the tanned softness of Sam’s neck and pull into it until it gives out. Dean has never hated him more, he’s never loved him so much either and it breaks him in two, enemy and lover, he doesn’t want to be both.

Sam snorts, eyes dark and mean, “Yeah, I figured.” He pushes Dean back, they dislocate from each other in a swift motion, painless, and Dean feels so empty he could cry. 

“Sammy, please, let’s just talk about this.”

“What is there to say?” And he means that, the idiot, he truly believes they can just go on like this, that they can ignore it until it goes away. Maybe their childhood has fucked them both more than Dean had thought. “I’m not gonna do it, not when I know you don’t agree. So it’s fine, we’re good.”

Dean’s pain bubbles inside of him, acidic foam, “Did you expect me to agree with this?” The thought alone is ridiculous.

“No, not really.”

But there’s a hint of uncertainty there, something that makes Dean shiver. When has he ever given his brother the idea that he’d agree with his death? 

“ _Sammy_.” It’s a request, not yet an order.

“I just thought,” Gosh, they would all be so much better if Sam could stop thinking so much all the time, “That maybe now that our mission is done, you could start over.”

Scratch that, not ridiculous, downright psychotic. “Start over?”

Sam shrugs again, Dean is going to bolt his shoulders in place with screws if he continues. “Might be easier for you.”

“Sure yeah, might be easier for me, Sam, because the minute after you kill yourself, I’m taking my Colt out of my bedside table and putting into directly into my mouth.” The way Sam gapes at him in shock shouldn’t be funny, but it kind of is, in a sordid way.

“I don’t get you!” His brother finally explodes, “I’m trying to give you an out, why won’t you just fucking take it and be done with it!”

“Be done with what?”

“With me!” Sam’s hysterical now, pointing at the space between them frantically, “With _us_!”

It’s Dean’s turn to blink in confusion, “Say that again?”

Sam breathes out in sort of shudders, he grabs at his own hair and lets his head fall on the wall behind him heavily, it’s gotta hurt. He wipes at his own face, pressing two fingers to the bridge of his nose, Dean wants to smooth the wrinkles under his eyes with his lips. “I don’t know why you stay, Dean.” He’s still got his eyes closed, “I thought I got it while we were hunting because it’s hard to train a new partner, someone who’d be able to work with you as well as I do at least and I guess, yeah, you love me a bit but I thought that after the gates were closed and you saw that it didn’t take me with the rest of the demons, you’d, you know, finish the job.”

If Dean got stabbed right now, between his ribs to pierce his lungs, he wouldn’t feel it. “What?”

He waits for Sam to explain more, to say something, anything, but instead, his brother takes his phone out of his pocket, turn on the sound and pushes a button. It’s his own voice that Dean hears, only he sounds younger, it’s less rough, but it’s not _him_ , it can’t be,

“ _Listen to me, you bloodsucking freak_ .” No, God no, this can’t be him. “ _Dad always said I'd either have to save you or kill you. Well, I'm giving you fair warning. I'm done trying to save you_ .” He’s shaking, he wants to puke. He can barely stand to listen to more but Sam doesn’t move, doesn’t even seem faced by it. Dean wonders with horror, how many times Sam has listened to this for it to become normal. “ _You're a monster, Sam, a vampire. You're not you anymore. And there's no going back.”_

They stand there in silence, not looking at each other while Sam pockets his phone and Dean hyperventilates. 

“I’d say five years is long enough,” Sam finally says, “I’m done waiting for the other shoe to drop, so yeah, I want to die, when are you taking care of it?”

And that’s when Dean vomits, emptying the meagre content of his stomach on the ground. It’s mostly just bile and wine, but it burns as it comes up and it brings tears to his eyes, or maybe that’s Sam’s fault, he’s not sure anymore. 

“Jesus,” His brother’s hands come to help him stand straight, if Dean was a stronger man, he’d push him away, instead he lets himself fall on Sam’s chest, eyes wetting his brother’s shirt as he tries to take a breath.

It takes him a few minutes because he can get any words out, “I’m not sure when or how it happened,” He looks up, Sam’s eyes are pools of changing colors, kaleidoscopical, “But that wasn’t me.” He continues when he sees Sam open his mouth, “You don’t have to believe me, but it’s the truth. I might have fucked things up between us a few time, might have said some shit I regret, done some stuff too, but I would _never_ ,” He wants to disappear in Sam’s hold, wants to melt and evaporate, “I would never give up on you.”

“Dean-”

“It’s the truth,” And it scares him a little because it is, it’s the most honest he’s been in years. “I would never give up on you, I don’t care that it makes me selfish, don’t care that it puts my morals in question or whatever, I would follow you anywhere.” He takes his brother’s face in his hands, presses their foreheads together, “I’d follow you in death, I’d follow you to Hell if I had to and I would never give up on you. I’d trade it all for you, Sammy, my soul, my humanity, everything, the world too.”

“I don’t want that,” Sam murmurs.

“I’ll give you anything,” Just one word and Dean’ll pull his own heart out, “But don’t ask me to give up on you, don’t ask me to let you die because I can’t do that. It’s against my nature, to not love you, Sam.”

His brother’s crying, big sobs that shake them both.

“Am I still your stone number one?” Dean asks, licking the tears off Sam’s cheeks. 

“Always, Dean, always, you’re the only one.”

He smiles a little, but it feels fragile on his own lips, “What do you need? Sammy, anything else I’ll give it to you.”

“I just,” He inhales with difficulty, breath cut by cries, “I just need to be like we were before. Need to trust you again, need you to trust me too.”

The golden days, where everything made sense on the road and they could fall back on each other without a doubt. When death was still a distant fear and not a close friend. Dean misses it too, misses how easy it was to comfort his brother and know that they could withstand any storm together.

“We can learn,” He presses a kiss to the corner of Sam’s mouth. ”We have all the time in the world now, we can be that again, we just gotta learn.” Sam’s lips taste like rosé, he guesses his own mouth must taste like sewage but Sam’s nice enough not to say a thing. “You’re a good student, Sammy, we’ll figure it out together. You just gotta fight some more, gotta stay alive for me, for yourself.”

Sam kisses hard, bruising and sweet, just how Dean likes it. “Okay, yeah, Dean, I can do that.”

It feels like hope, tastes like it too, and Dean thinks, with amusement, as he watches his brother dig into a slice with gusto and rekindled joy, that it pairs beautifully with strawberries, chocolate buttercream and a perfectly cooled down cake, with cerulean candles on top. 

**Author's Note:**

> comments are much appreciated, leave as many as your heart desires!
> 
> -dnw


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